Odd Questions?

[H2o]

[AlaskaStar]

your sonic boom theory has been proven. on my grandpa's Airboat, which had a Lycoming 6 cylinder engine, and an 8 foot propeller, a 4 barrel updraft carburetor, with 6 equal length runners all 4 feet long for an intake, and a tuned exhaust that was directed into the prop for a "free supercharge" by design, showed me why an aircraft needs a gear reduction unit to run the prop at 1800 RPM's or so....

at the speed of sound, the propeller STOPS PRODUCING THRUST. this is wierd, but this is the speed of sound at the propeller tips, apparantly this has something to do with pressure, and viscosity with the oscillations that occur at that speed.

One would typically think it to be the other way around though.....

as for the speed of acceleration:

Look up: Ion Drive Propulsion Units and Plasma Drive Propulsion Units.
both developed by NASA, and for use in space whenever they get around to going someplace other than the moon with people onboard.

AlaskaStar

[Bart West-VL.]

[judah]

[hypersoniq]

I would guess that the motor itself wouldn't create any sonic booms because the air inside the housing would move along with the rotor (like a jet engine in a nacelle),
Rather than having something that is exceeding the speed of sound through "static" air. I would imagine the motor to reach some sort of equilibrium and never develop the peak overpressures and shock waves that result in sonic booms. an external prop attached to that motor however...